We made a series of interviews between the end of 2011 and the beginning of 2012. These interviews persuaded us to complete a project we were thinking about for a long time: the setting up of a cards rotation system.

Right now there are 800 cards in the collection and it’s already too much for the game to run smoothly. The players who have all the cards always use the strongest of a clan and even if it makes them win matches they are frustrated not to see more variety. For their part, the beginners have to face a huge collection and they often feel quite lost.

We want to create a list that includes only characters released in the past two years (+ leaders and starter characters) and change several rooms which allow players to only use the characters in this list. We won’t impose this list in every rooms because our goal is not to stop you from playing the oldest cards, for example the DM T2 and Survivor T2 won’t change at all even if names will be different.

Let’s see what will happen in detail:

1/ Create a list of characters called «Standard» which will be updated every 6 months:
This list will contain Leaders, Starter Decks characters, all characters released within these last 2 years before the update (LD included) and characters which will be released after the update.
In practical terms it will give about ten characters allowed in each clan (with more or less the same number of characters in each level). Note that the new clans will keep all their characters. It will be taken into account in the cards releases planning. We will act as to give each clan what they need to be efficient.

3/ Finally, create or adapt battle rooms:
The Standard battle room : Standard Format with a DT every other hour.
Instead of opening a less than 26 stars (T1) room and a more than 26 stars (T2) one, you will have one single room BUT you’ll face opponents whose decks have a number of stars close to yours. This mechanism corresponds better to the reality of DTs today where every players try to find the good combination which will give the most points while winning matches with 20 to 30 stars decks. Merging the two rooms will allow you to keep this optimization spirit without the «artificial» side of the stars limitation. This flexibility combined with the Standard format will give a breath of fresh air to DTs while keeping specificity.

This room will be the ONLY DT room. There won’t be any T2, T1 or ELO Daily Tournament. We know that it’s not harmless and it was a very difficult decision to take. Some of you struggled a long time to obtain very expensive collectors which allow them to improve their results in DT and their disappointment is understandable. Nevertheless, DT’s today are clearly dominated by some decks not to say several highly efficient cards which is not healthy in a competitive game mode.

The ELO room: Standard format 25 (with potentially some bans), same rules except that there won’t be DTs in this room any more.
Use the Standard rules in the ELO mode sounds quite obvious to us. It will allow some regular changes to the mode and it will remove old characters which cause balancing problems. It should reduce the number of staff banned characters and no more characters banned by players.

About DT, we think that the ELO mode is pretty different from the DT. There is no reason to mix these two game modes. Today, ELO players have the opportunity to win free credits without playing in DT. Tomorrow they’ll have to choose between Dt and ELO which is already the case for players playing in other modes (Survivor or DM).

3 Deathmatch rooms:
Extended DM: Extended format, current DM rules.
Standard DM: Standard format, current DM rules.
Standard DM 25: Standard format 25, current DM rules.
The Extended DM will be equivalent to the current DM T2, only the name will change.
The Standard DM will allow players with big decks but with characters in the Standard list. The DM T1 will disappear and we’ll add a Standard 25 room. We noticed that the rare players in DM T1 were more ELO players than DT T1 players. We hope that the Standard DM 25 will be more used than the current DM T1 room. If it’s not the case, we will think about it. If there are DM T1 players here who are reading this message and Don’t want this change to Standard DM 25, Don’t hesitate to let us know.

When will these changes be taking place?
and why not instead of changing existing elo into standard, why not create 2 elo formats, 1 for standard and 1 without, with the stipulation that the prizes are distributed to either, much in the same way the old DT was done.

the issue with this change in my eyes is that there's going to be a fine fine balance with each clan only having 10 cards available. this will eliminate deck choices and will also mean that a bad release will screw a clan for the following 6 months.

the other issue i have here is the fact that this almost entirely eliminates mono decks from competition, or at least changes it so there is very little variance within mono. currently for example with Rescue you can build 1 5* or 2 or none at all, with very large variance upon 2, 3 and 4 stars based upon preference. with this change however this essentially turns elo into a multitude of the same decks, rather than the incredible variance that we see today.

TL;DR the change, while well meaning is ultimately going to be detrimental. in order to make this change an actual viable, strong change, elo should remain as is, with the option to play elo standard.

this feels like UR is trying to mimic MTG, and the reason that standard works for them and it won't work here, is because in standard at any given times there are roughly 500-600 cards. UR will have a fraction of these, with very little meta variance.

I think it's less confusing if we stop thinking in terms of T1, T2 and ELO. Think only in terms of "Standard" and "Extended". "Standard 25" is simply Standard with a 25* cap.

Here's an interesting thought....

Might this mean that Semi-EVO is coming back to ELO? Er... I mean "Standard 25"? I'd love to see some newer cards released with evolutions below max capacity, that actually see use in a competitive format.

I've also gotten several questions about when this might go into effect. I DO NOT KNOW FOR CERTAIN, BUT..... It looks like some of the discussion in other areas have talked about a POSSIBLE 6 month rotation, beginning in March. In other words, POSSIBLE implementation in march, with cycling out of 2-year cards again in September. Example - Pesth came out May 7th, 2010. He would be legal from March to September, and then be 'cycled out' in September's rotation.

One last note. To paraphrase Dr. Ido and Orpheus... "Rotation" may not be the best terminology, because cards that are cycled out due to age are not likely to come back "in". But in terms of keeping the new stuff fresh and competitive, the active list will 'rotate', insofar as it simply changes every six months. Make sense?

See,anon_32 pretty much hit issue on the head here with elo.
From the people i talked to,most people think the idea is ridiculous.Because lets face it-while the current elo isnt perfect,its still well beloved and endeared by many a player because of the unpredictability of not knowing what you'll face next.The "new elo" you guys are proposing is nice and all,but put it this way: it'll be fun for the first few days until people figure out the perfect tactic to win with that deck and steamroll the worse players/newer players which may in turn frusturate those players and force them to quit out of frusturation and then its the same people at the top over and over again,and thats what you guys are hoping for with this new elo is that this erases that.seems to me as if it doesnt.

To summarize,put in the new elo if you must,but leave classic elo and let people decide for themselves what they,the community as a united whole want because sometimes people like classic things a lot more than their newer counterparts-just ask coca cola or pepsi when they released their zero calory format

I'm seeing some 'glass half-empty' comments up there. Frankly, I understand the frustration, but I don't think everyone is looking at the potential.

The new ELO system will result in fewer 'bans'. Fewer cards will meet the Standard criteria, yes, and the UR staff will need to be very careful to keep things balanced upon new releases, but the format will be more competitive because "saving up" alone will not be enough to award any player a large advantage. This certainly is a benefit for the greater number of players, who by definition, are the ones underneath that top tier of deck-value.

Let's say (theoretically) all the cards before the 3/12/2010 release are removed from Standard, and only playable in Extended. Add back in the Ld cards, and add back in a number of "starter cards", and we're looking at 230-240 cards, as of now, I'm guessing. Does that make it harder to have good selection in a clan? Only initially. Since we now will be cycling older cards out, who is to say we can't do 5 or 6 cards in a release, instead of 4? (Sorry, artists. Get to work!) We can have more 'specialty' cards released for special occasions or themed contests. We can (I hope) allow semi-EVO cards back into Standard 25, and really add some fun mixing up the possibilities.

UR will need to be careful. Especially with newer clans who already have notable variation. New cards will need to fill star-gaps and ability holes to keep it balanced. But, you'll be getting 50+ new cards between each "cycle" of removal. The first six to twelve months will be more than adequate to get things where they need to be. And if UR DOES decide to release a few extra cards, that will only add extra variability, WITHOUT the current liability of never seeing those cards removed from the system. In two years' time, the stable constant could be 350 cards, instead of the 240 we might start with while the system implements.

Long story short - Try not to think of the future in today's terms. One change has several effects, and some of those effects allow for more flexibility in the general "rules" we think of as immutable. Keep an open mind, and continue to talk things out. We might very well come up with a few extra ideas here, that the dev team may find worthwhile. (Hint-Hint-Allow-Semi-EVO-Hint-Hint) ;-]

"the other issue i have here is the fact that this almost entirely eliminates mono decks from competition, or at least changes it so there is very little variance within mono. currently for example with Rescue you can build 1 5* or 2 or none at all, with very large variance upon 2, 3 and 4 stars based upon preference. with this change however this essentially turns elo into a multitude of the same decks, rather than the incredible variance that we see today."

Hmmm, the changes seem interesting but this'll kill so many 2 and 3 star cards. There should be a normal t1 format, if these changes are made to give these cards a reason to still be used, so don't get rid of the normal t1 DM.

Please don't make DM T1 into a standard DM 25 room. That goes pretty close to making it an ELO DM does it not? Correct me if I'm wrong. But wasn't the point of DM T1 for us to use our older more expensive cards that we couldn't use in elo/survivor elo without any limitations other than it having to be 25*?

But there are possibilities, and UR does have a fairly good track record of thinking these things through before they implement.

Maybe we can talk them into 2 1/2 years. Maybe they can up the number of releases in a given cycle, or give extra releases at the beginning of a cycle. (Who ever said it has to be exactly 4 every two weeks?) Maybe Rescue will have extra representation in those Starter decks, since the clan bonus really is designed for monoclan. I don't know. But I am certain that you and I aren't the first ones to ask these questions.

It's a valid concern. I really prefer monoclan for every format, for any clan. (Soapbox: Allowing Semi-EVO is a good move to that end. ;-] ) While monoclan shouldn't be eliminated in most cases, and the other languages do talk about ensuring star-balance, it does remove variability for monoclan, under the current rules. The question then becomes: What can we now afford to do, that the 'current' rules have previously made impractical? And more specifically, how can those new possibilities be best used to add back that variability lost?

The Urban Rivals team is made by lovers of all kind of Collectibles Cards Games and Trading Cards Games like: Magic the Gathering, Dominion, Vampire, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Pokemon, Wakfu TCG, Assassin Creed Recollection, Shadow Era, Kard Kombat and Might & Magic Duel of Champions.